Secrets & Lies & Unexpected Occurrences
by XWingAce
Summary: Dan Vasser seems to be tracking Stephen Bartowski. But at the same time, the Intersect leads Chuck to tracking Dan Vasser...


Author's Note:

Well, this took way too long to write. I started it sometime during the start of Chuck Season 4. That's also where the majority of this story is set. As for Journeyman, that's a very underrated show that had only a single half-season back in 2007. And I still miss it. Hence the story.

Feedback is always appreciated.

Enjoy,

XWA

-X-

Dan Vasser picked himself up out of the underbrush and sighed. Things had been going so well. For three months he hadn't travelled back, long enough that he felt confident enough to drive to LA for that conference Hugh wanted him to cover.

He'd been well on his way into LA when he felt the headache come on. At least he'd had enough warning to pull his car into a lay-by. He was pretty sure he'd left the engine running, though.

Now he was in a bit of slightly wooded area. He walked out to where the shrubs were thinnest, and found himself on a road. And staring at the grille of an oncoming car.

The car squealed to a halt, slewing sideways across the road and then partially off it. At least it missed Dan. He could hear the driver cursing; it was a convertible and the roof was down.

"What the hell were you thinking?" the driver shouted at him after he'd gotten out of the car. He immediately started checking that his car was still all right. By the looks of it, it was, with just the front wheels off the edge of the road. A proper push should set it back on the road and ready to go on its way. But before that, Dan had to think up an excuse.

He threw up his arms in a shrug and looked around once again, as if confused. Not so far from the truth, there. "Sorry about that. I think someone pulled a prank on me, dumped me here."

The driver looked up from his inspection of his tires, piercing eyes under a wild mop of hair. "That's a terrible thing to pull on a man." His tone was mixed shock and residual anger.

"Tell me about it," Dan tried a sheepish smile. "Honestly, I don't even have any idea where I am." He approached the car, slowly, trying to look unthreatening. "But I _am_ sorry about this. Let me help you get it back on the road."

The man frowned at Dan, but let him help push the car up. It was heavier that it'd looked at first glance, and the man himself was being very cautious with his car, as if afraid to scratch it.

"New car?" Dan asked.

"Yeah," the question provoked a smile from the driver. "Bought her for the wife and kid." He gave a mighty push against the fender, and Dan added his weight. Together, they achieved movement.

"Nice," Dan said after they'd gotten the car back on to the road and were both trying to get their breath back. He sought for something else to say. The color of the seats stood out – blue leather – so he remarked on that. "I like the seats."

"Aren't they gorgeous?" The driver patted the back of the seat. "I had to special order them in, but they're worth it." He was silent for a little while, apparently considering something. "Hey, if you want, I can give you a ride to Barstow. You can get wherever you need to go from there."

Dan nodded gratefully. "I'd appreciate that, thanks." He held out his hand. "Dan."

"Steven Bartowski."

Of course, Dan never made it to Barstow. They were barely underway when Dan travelled away again. He could only imagine the driver's reaction.

-X-

Chuck gave his best retail grin to the man approaching his Nerd Herd station. "Hi, welcome to Buy More! How can I help you?"

The guy looked familiar, but he gave no sign of recognizing Chuck as he pulled out a brand-new smart phone. He held it out for Chuck to inspect. "The GPS seems to be out. Can you fix it?"

Chuck frowned. "This should still be covered by warranty, but I can take a look." He took the phone and started scrolling through the menu for the GPS settings. "Are you sure you had it turned on?"

"Yeah, it worked fine this morning."

"Hmm." Chuck commanded the phone to make contact with the nearest satellite, but he got error messages, presumably the same ones his customer had gotten. No quick fix here, then. Restoring the original settings through the user interface didn't work either. He grabbed a USB cable. "I'm just going to hook it up here, see if our diagnostics can find anything. Do you mind?"

The man shook his head. "Go ahead."

"So, you from around here?" Chuck asked while the diagnostic program did its work. "I've seen you somewhere before."

The man raised his eyebrows, eyes wide. He recovered quickly, though, and shook his head again. "I'm from San Francisco. Just in LA for a conference." He nodded at the phone and smiled. "That's why I really need the GPS." He smiled, blue eyes lighting up. "I wouldn't know how to get there otherwise."

"We do sell maps, over by the registers," Chuck was in the middle of pointing that out when he program gave its results. "Huh, that's weird."

"What is?" The customer leaned in a little to get a sideways glance at the screen.

"The clock signal on the phone's out of phase with the clock on the satellite. That shouldn't be possible." It was not something that your standard software would have picked up, but having a CIA supercomputer to do his tech analyses was really one of the new perks of the job, albeit one his customer had no business knowing. The problem should also be easily fixed. Chuck disconnected the USB cable and started to remove the back of the phone to get at the battery. He shot a mock-stern glance at the customer. "What did you do? Take it into a DeLorean at 88 miles an hour? Or do you have a TARDIS sitting outside?"

"I'm sorry,_what_?_" _

Chuck had meant his remarks as a joke, but the customer didn't seem to be taking it that way. Hell, he was almost panicking. So Chuck let the stern glare drop. He grinned. "Relax, just kidding." He pointed up at the sign hanging above the Nerd Herd desk and winked. "It does say 'Nerd' up there, doesn't it? You show up here with a phone's internal clock that's inexplicably running a few years slow, you're going to get funny questions."

Halfway through his explanation, he could see his customer catch on, and the panicked expression transformed into a smile. "Time travel, I see." He nodded, slowly, returning Chuck's wink. "That must be it. I'll have to remember to turn my phone off next time." The smile disappeared again.  
"But can you fix it?"

"Hardware reset should do it. The chip should resynchronize and you're done." Chuck was putting the action to his words while he was speaking. "Good thing, too, because I don't think breaking the laws of physics is covered in the warranty." He found the GPS reset and pushed it, then put the phone back together. "There. Give it a minute to reset itself."

While the both of them were waiting for the phone to restart, the customer started to make small talk. "I bet this isn't the job you thought you'd be doing when you were a kid. Fixing phones for clueless strangers."

That wasn't the job Chuck was usually doing nowadays, but he was right enough. Still, maintain cover. He shrugged. "It's not that bad. Once you embrace the Nerd lifestyle…" he followed his customer's gaze over to where Jeff and Lester were once again coming awfully close to sexually harassing a female customer, with Morgan stepping in just in time. "…okay, it _is_ that bad, but I get great deals on all the cool gadgets." He forced the grin. Oh, god, he sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

"Sounds great." The customer's tone indicated that he agreed with Chuck's unspoken assessment. He was happy enough to see his phone restored to full working order, however. "And I know where I am again. Thanks," he peered at Chuck's name badge, "Chuck."

The words came out of Chuck's mouth before he even realized it. The trick get someone to spill their name had become so ingrained. "It was a pleasure serving you, Mr…"

It worked, too. "Vasser. Dan Vasser."

The man held out his hand. Chuck couldn't take it, though, because the syllables of that name triggered the Intersect. The name of a case file flashed across his vision, stamped 'Eyes Only'. The name of the file was 'Project Archangel'. There were also a few images, with accompanying names. Elliot Langley and Frank Vasser.

As flashes went, not the most informative one. But it was a flash, and there was obviously more to this Dan Vasser than met the eye.

He shook off the flash to see Dan Vasser still standing there, holding out his hand and looking slightly concerned. He tried another smile as he finally took the outstretched hand. "Sorry about that. It's been a long day."

"I see," Vasser said, looking at Chuck with that slightly curious look that he'd been seeing far too much of over the past few years, whenever he said or did something perfectly logical to him, but that seemed odd to anyone not having the full context. And he hadn't often had a chance to share full contexts, what with just about everybody in his life knowing different bits of everything.

"I'll let you get back to work, then," Vasser took his leave. Chuck watched him head for the registers, but halfway there, he seemed to change his mind and he made a sharp turn for the door. By the time he walked through that door, Chuck was already on his way to grab Casey.

"I just had a flash off a customer. I'm heading for Castle to track him."

It took a while for Casey and Sarah to get to Castle as well. By that time, Chuck had fired up the computers and was trying to find Dan Vasser on the security cameras outside the BuyMore. Just as he reached a point in the coverage that made him go 'What the hell?', Casey and Sarah walked in.

"So what've we got?"

Probably better to start at the beginning. Chuck rewound the video and froze the image on a facial shot of Dan Vasser exiting the BuyMore. "I got a flash when this guy mentioned his name. Project Archangel. It's apparently a scrapped NSA project, led by a Doctor Elliot Langley." With a press of a key, he called up the picture he'd already found in Castle's database. "But here's the fun part. Whatever the project was about isn't in the Intersect. Just that Langley closed it down after a reporter found out about it. And it's nowhere in the NSA or CIA databases either."

"Could it just be random flash?" Sarah asked. "You've had those before, right?"

Chuck frowned. "Maybe," he said, doubtfully, "but take a look at this and tell me there's not more going on." He unpaused the video. It showed Dan Vasser simply walking out onto the parking lot, phone in hand. Then there was a slight distortion, no more than a single frame. After that, Dan Vasser was gone. Everybody else in the background moved on without even a single twitch. Chuck rewound and played it again, frame by frame, freezing on the distorted frame. It was simply white, as if from a flash of very bright light.

Casey blinked first. "Okay, what the hell?"

Chuck shrugged. "If someone hacked into the Castle mainframe in ten minutes and replaced this video, I'm seriously impressed. The editing is incredible, not to mention their skills at getting through our security undetected." He pressed a few keys. "Running a check to see if they left any traces. That could take a while. And I can dig into the log files myself, too, but…"

"Maybe Vasser is a better lead to check out," Sarah finished the sentence.

"Exactly."

"Definitely looks like it," Casey agreed. He grabbed a keyboard and logged himself in. "Let's get started."

Dan took a look at the 'signal lost' message of his phone's GPS and cursed his luck. Three months without travelling. Now twice in maybe three hours.

Well, at least he didn't have to figure out where he'd ended up. He was back in the store he'd just walked out of. It looked eerily identical. Whenever he was, it couldn't be too long ago.

He grabbed a DVD out of the 'Just In' display and looked at the copyright notice. It read 2005. Six years was longer than he'd thought judging by the store itself.

Someone bumped into Dan from behind, causing him to drop the DVD, and almost his phone, too.

"Oh, sorry, sir," the mop-headed kid in the green shirt who had bumped into Dan said. He wore a yellow nametag with 'Morgan' on it. He put away the box he'd been carrying, leaving Dan to pick up the DVD.

"What's that?" Morgan then asked, unceremoniously pulling Dan's phone out of his hands. "Is this the new PDA they're bringing out?"

Dan tried to think of something to say, and quickly. He still hadn't quite gotten over the disaster he'd nearly caused by leaving a digital camera back in the eighties. Morgan didn't leave him a chance to get a word in edgewise, however. He just kept on chattering on.

"Where do you keep the stylus on this thing? I don't see a slot for it." He turned the phone around in his hands. He hit the power button by accident, reactivating the screen. "You're supposed to use your hands?" He tapped heavily on the screen. "It does look incredible, I'll give you that."

"What does?" Another two employees, these two in the outfits of the 'Nerd Herd', joined Morgan and took over Dan's phone. "New digital organiser? Those things'll never catch on like this," the smaller one said. "You need a keyboard if you're going to organise anything." He turned it over again. "Plus, with a battery this thin, battery life has to suck."

It didn't take them too long to discover the camera and the more advanced touch screen functions, though, and the three of them were all gathered around the little thing while Dan increasingly despaired of ever getting his phone back. He wished Livia were here. He could use her help.

Livia didn't show up, but help was nevertheless on the way. Chuck, the guy who had helped Dan back in 2011 showed up and broke up the group. "Guys, you're crowding a customer. Jeff, Lester, wasn't there a computer brought in for you to fix?" When the two of them had relinquished Dan's phone, he turned to Dan. "My apologies, sir. I'm sure Morgan here can help you with whatever you need." He smiled at Morgan, and it looked to Dan like the kind of smile that said 'or you'll regret it'.

"Sure thing, Chuck," Morgan nodded. "This way, sir."

Morgan led Dan to the registers and rang up the DVD Dan had been holding. That left Dan with another little dilemma. He didn't pay attention to the bills he put in his wallet anymore, so he didn't know if he had any bills in there that had already been issued. If all his bills were from 2006 or later, he had a problem.

Thank goodness he found an old twenty tucked in the back of his wallet. It was too worn to tell its exact age, but it would have to do. It paid for the DVD, and that was enough. He got out of the Buy More as fast as he could after that. He bumped into another customer, a man wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap and a plaid shirt, on the way. He didn't care, he wanted to get out.

Dan was a little confused, though. He'd now made two trips back, but he hadn't seen any common ground between the two trips. No one or two people he'd met both times, and no news broadcasts or anything to tell him what the significance of these moments was, either. So, he still didn't know what he was supposed to be doing as he travelled back again.

In the time it had taken Chuck to conclude that, if someone had broken into the Castle computer system, they'd done it without leaving a single trace, Casey had pulled together everything the CIA, NSA and various other government agencies had on Dan Vasser. Some file it was, too.

Up until about four years ago, he'd been a reporter for the San Francisco Register, with regular bylines in the City section. Stay-at-home wife, sweet little son, regular house on the good side of town. Completely and utterly normal.

But then Vasser had disappeared for several days, long enough for Katie Vasser and the Register to alert the police. Vasser returned, eventually, but his whereabouts during those few days were still unaccounted for. From then on, not only did his number of bylines drop drastically, other unlikely things started happening around him, too. No single one really enough to arouse suspicion, but when viewed together like this…

Casey gave a summary. "Our man Vasser walks through airport security as if it isn't even there, gets spotted with a gun at some celebrity gala…"

The picture Casey called onto the screen was one from a security camera. It showed Dan Vasser in a tuxedo, and indeed, holding a gun. Chuck grinned. "Very James Bond."

Casey shot him a frown, which made him shut up. "His brother covered for him at the time. By the time this picture surfaced, no one bothered to make a case of it anymore." Casey continued. "He also became the target of an FBI investigation. The file isn't on record, but the agent running the investigation was shot to death in Vasser's home. "

"Sloppy," Sarah shook her head dispassionately. "If he really was a spy, he wouldn't have let it come to that."

"Maybe, but he did get away with it, nice and clean." Casey called up another image. "The agent's death was blamed on this guy. He'd broken in that day and held Vasser's wife hostage. Confessed and everything."

"Very convenient," Chuck added.

Casey nodded his agreement. "Too convenient."

"Spy," they all concluded simultaneously

That didn't get them anywhere, however. Not really. Sarah now asked the actually important questions. "But who is he working for, and why is he here?"

Casey shook his head. "He's registered to attend the crime conference at the Grand Ambassador. That's probably got something to do with it."

There were any number of high-ranking officials from law enforcement organisations attending that conference. It didn't narrow things down much. "Can I get some pictures of other people on the attendance list?" Chuck asked. Maybe he could flash off one of them and get some clues that way.

Before either he or Casey could call up the images, a console on the other end of the room beeped. Chuck headed over. "Huh. State police just found a car registered to Dan Vasser on a lay-by along I-5. The engine's still warm. Can't have left it more than half an hour." He looked again. "Wait, that doesn't make sense." He put the location where the car was found on the screen, along with a distance calculation. "That's at least an two hours' drive from here. How did he get to the Buy More in that time?"

That kind of travel time indicated he had support. Maybe a helicopter picked him up, or something. Although there were no records or reports of air traffic at that time in that area. But however Vasser had gotten here, it had been imperative that he get here quickly, or he wouldn't have abandoned his car for alternative means of transport.

The only thing Vasser had done i_here/i _before disappearing again was talk to Chuck. That much was obvious from the CCTV footage. Which meant Vasser was on to something about him. Look, paranoia comes naturally in this game. However much Chuck would like to trust everyone, Vasser was looking terribly suspicious.

Another console beeped. Chuck had put out a trace on Vasser's GPS, and it appeared he had activated it again. This time it was Sarah who checked the console. "Vasser is in LA, at the conference. What do we do?"

"Easy. We go in and pick him up. We can ask questions later." Casey was already on his way to the weapons cabinet. He tossed Chuck his tranq gun. "Let's go."

Picking up Dan Vasser turned out to be surprisingly easy. On Sarah's advice, Chuck held back. Vasser had seen him already, after all, so the sight of Chuck might spook him. Instead, Sarah and Casey, both with badges announcing them to be on the conference staff, picked Vasser out of the crowd. He came with them without so much as a raised eyebrow. Only when they were out of the crowd, and Casey took a lot firmer hold on Vasser, did he start to protest.

Chuck was still watching other members of the conference go through registration, so Vasser, Casey and Sarah were also out of Chuck's view. He could follow the conversation through his earpiece, though. Vasser was now definitely resisting arrest. "Hey, what's going on? You can't just arrest me!"

"I can't, huh? Watch me." Casey wasn't having any of it. And if Vasser's whimper was anything to go by, he was being characteristically ungentle about it.

"We do want to talk to him later, y'know, Casey," Chuck felt the need to say.

"Yeah, I got it," Casey's reply came back. "Target secure. Let's get back to Castle."

"On my way." Chuck made his way to the exit. Before he could get there, however, he caught sight of two outwardly normal people standing together, talking. Simply a man and a woman with a connection to law enforcement attending a conference. Except that Chuck flashed on the both of them, and all connections these two had with the law were on the wrong side of it. "Uh, guys, you go on ahead. I think I've got a visual on Vasser's associates." He turned away, so even if one of them turned around, they wouldn't see him looking at them "Two former Ring operatives, standing right here out in the open."

"Chuck, you shouldn't stay in there alone." Sarah came onto the radio. "I can come back, be there in two minutes."

"Vasser's our priority right now, Sarah. Bring him in first." Chuck fished his phone out of his pocket and took covert snapshots of the two operatives. "I'm sending pictures of our other bad guys to Castle right now. Get what you can on them from there, and then come back me up. I'll just lay low here."

"I'll hurry back. Be careful." With that, Sarah and Casey were gone. Chuck was on his own.

He found himself a glass of something and joined the outer fringes of the audience of the LAPD police chief. The two possible assassins were pretty close to this group, but they were on the other side of it. Chuck could keep them in sight unnoticed. Unfortunately, while he could keep the pair in view, he couldn't hear anything they were saying, so he had no possible chance of overhearing them, and thus no chance of finding out what their plan was. So Chuck slowly moved around the group to a position where he icould/i hear something.

Just his luck, of course, that by the time he got to that position, his targets were gone. They had moved away from the group and were heading toward a door in the back of the reception hall. Chuck followed, but it was more difficult to stay inconspicuous once they were out of the crowd. At several points, Chuck had to let the two out of his sight in order to stay hidden himself.

The last time they turned a corner of a particularly silent hallway, Chuck couldn't find them anymore. He started to sprint, hoping to catch up. Because he was so rushed, he didn't notice the open door right around that corner. He certainly didn't notice the man coming out of the doorway and knocking him unconscious.

-X-

Never mind that he could feel the transitions coming, the trips to the past were still taking Dan by surprise. Especially now. One minute he was in the back of a car equipped like a tank, in handcuffs, the next he was somewhere on his backside at the back of a huge building. In the dark. Given the noise of traffic, he was probably still in LA, but anything else was impossible to determine at this point. At least he had been cuffed with his hands in front because of the car ride.

With a bit of fumbling, Dan managed to get his phone out of his pocket and to activate the screen. The light from the screen provided him with two pieces of information. One, the building here was some kind of office building, and his phone didn't have signal. In fact, the only thing that gave any indication of a signal was the FM radio. That meant he was most likely in a time where cell phones were little more than science fiction. Still not much to go on.

Dan's attempts to figure out when he was were cut short by someone coming out of the dark and grabbing him. Dan was thrown against the wall before he'd managed to muster any sort of resistance.

"Don't move," his assailant said. Dan's phone was pulled from his hands, and that meant his attacker also saw the handcuffs. Dan could tell from the way the pressure on his back relaxed that this fact surprised the man. Then the grip increased again and Dan was pushed toward the exit of the alley, where there was a little more light.

Once there, the man shoved Dan so he turned to face him. He stayed out of the light, but Dan thought he could see the fairly distinctive nose of the man he'd encountered in the woods with his new car. Stephen Bartowski? Something like that. He could also see that, however aggressive the man had behaved, he wasn't actually iarmed/i. Or carrying much of anything, in fact. What the hell was he up to?

Apparently Bartowski didn't recognise Dan as easily. "Do I know you?"

Dan shook his head, then held up his hands as well as he could, showing they were empty. "Not really," he said, trying to placate the man. "Look, I'm just passing by here, I'm sure you don't want any trouble either, so let's just…" He was interrupted by the alarms in the building behind him going off.

"Damn," Bartowski said under his breath. Then he grabbed Dan's upper arm and started dragging him along. "No time for this. We're running." Dan wasn't in a position to argue. Even if he had been, he wouldn't have. He ran along as fast as he could.

Bartowski followed a complex course through all sorts of back alleys and side streets, but the pursuit kept up. Eventually, Dan was pushed through an anonymous doorway into a seemingly abandoned building. It gave them time to catch their breath.

It also gave Bartowski time to look at Dan more closely. "I do know you from somewhere," he said.

Dan shook his head. "I don't think so."

Bartowski was still frowning at him. Then he snapped his fingers. Or mimed doing it, at least. "The hitchhiker."

Dan was still panting. Bartowski had to be in excellent physical condition. He closed his eyes, shaking his head again. "You must have some visual memory," he said in between breaths. "We met years ago, for just a few minutes."

"I never forget a face," Bartowski said. He didn't stop his suspicious scrutiny of Dan. "I suppose this isn't a coincidence. What do you want?"

"I want to get out of this situation. Those guards didn't look all too friendly." Dan cast a glance through a crack in the door they were hiding behind. None of the guards were in sight, but he could still hear them shouting. "If anything, I'd like to help if you'll let me."

All that got him was a long, level stare. "You must take me for some sort of…" Bartowski finally started to say, but he stopped himself when the shouting sounded again, much closer this time. He raised a hand to forestall Dan saying anything, and leaned over to glance through a crack in the door.

The expression on Bartowski's face told Dan all he needed to know. The guards were getting close. He nodded, then gestured raised his hands to gesture to the other side of the building. "You go that way. I'll distract them."

Bartowski had to make a decision now, and Dan could see him consider the various options for about three heartbeats. Then he nodded as well. "Good luck," he said, and took off.

Dan waited until he couldn't hear his footsteps anymore. Then he kicked the door as hard as he could, and shouted "This way!" at the top of his lungs. He ran off in the opposite direction to Bartowski. He couldn't run very fast and he stumbled over all kinds of detritus. Then again, that was sort of the point.

The guards were coming after him. Not long now, and they'd be on him. If he could just turn this corner…

Dan turned the corner and ran into a door.

-X-

When Chuck woke up, he found himself in some sort of maintenance closet. With a locked door. Whoever had locked him in had done him the courtesy of leaving the light on. Other than that, however, they had stripped the closet of anything useful and had removed everything Chuck had had in his pockets. He had nothing, not even his earpiece to call Casey and Sarah. Well, that and about a dozen towels and bed sheets.

A quick investigation of the door showed that not only had it been locked, the inside door handle had been removed.

Drawing on his Intersect-enhanced skills, Chuck aimed a karate kick at the door. Two, even. No use. The door didn't budge. Maybe a run-up would help. Chuck went as far into the back of the closet as possible, then ran at the door.

He never got there.

Instead, he collided, full pelt, with someone else who had just run into the door. From the thud, isomeone's/i head had hit the door at least. Once he'd found his balance again, Chuck felt for bruises and concluded that it probably hadn't been him. That left the other guy. And ihow/i had he gotten in here anyway?

The 'other guy' had sunk to the floor and was groaning. He held his head in his hands, exposing the metal rings that held his wrists together. Wait… That wasn't right. He recognised this guy. "Dan Vasser? You're not supposed to be here! How did you…"

Vasser looked up at Chuck, squeezing his eyes shut, and then blinking a few times. "You…" he started, clearly searching his memory. "Chuck?" He blinked again, then put his head back into his hands. "I could ask you the same questions." Only now did he start to really look around. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Oh, no no no. First you answer the question." Chuck backed up as far as the limited space would allow, just so he could have room to defend himself if necessary. "How did you get in here?"

Dan started to work his way upward, using the door as his support to slowly crawl upright. It took him a while, and he didn't start talking until he was upright. Effective stalling technique. "I don't know," he said, still looking downward. Then he looked up and repeated an earlier statement. "I don't even know where here iis/i."

"A broom closet of the Grand Ambassador," Chuck eventually decided to answer. He was rewarded by one of the stacks of towels on the back wall tipping over on him. He must have dislodged them in his attempt to create some room between himself and Vasser. "Make that a linen closet."

"Back at the hotel?" Vasser was frowning. "Then what are you doing he…" he fell silent, studying Chuck once again. Then he closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the door. "You're with the people who picked me up. NSA, was it?"

"I— uh," Chuck busied himself putting the towels back where they belonged to give himself a little time to think. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah, right." Vasser didn't sound convinced at all. But his expression betrayed nothing as he kept looking at Chuck. He held out for about a minute before sighing and dropping his head. "You know what, never mind. Let's just get out of here."

"Way ahead of you," Chuck said. Then he shrugged. "Or I would be, but when they locked me in here, they took everything I had on me. And violence isn't working." He looked at Vasser. "Unless you've still got your phone?"

"Sure." The word was out before Chuck had finished his question, and Vasser's hands were moving to his jacket pocket in the same instant. Then he went pale, and started turning all the pockets he could reach inside out. Eventually, he stopped, took a deep breath and managed to say something. "Sorry, I must have lost it somewhere."

"Let me check your other pockets," Chuck insisted. It would be awkward, but anything for a chance to get out.

After only a slight hesitation, Vasser stood up. "Please do." Then he raised his hands again, emphasising the cuffs. "Your friends didn't make this any easier."

Chuck considered his options. One of the things Vasser had pulled out of his jacket pocket was a pen. He might be able to get Vasser out of the cuffs with that if no alternatives presented themselves. But first things first.

"Well, you've got more than I do" Chuck said as he went through the contents of Vasser's pockets. Handkerchief, receipt, pen, some loose coins, wallet, pocket recorder and a notebook and some loose pages. No phone – no car keys, either. Nothing really to open doors with. At least now he had options.

It looked like the first option was going to be releasing Vasser. Chuck picked up the pen and screwed it open. Standard ballpoint. The ink filling and the clip together would serve just fine to open up a pair of standard handcuffs. He wouldn't even need the Intersect for that one. "Let's have a look at those cuffs, then."

Vasser watched with a blank expression while Chuck undid the cuffs. "That's an interesting skill for a professional Nerd," he said as he rubbed his wrists.

"Hey, I'll have you know that lock picking is a very popular Nerd skill." Chuck checked the door out again. "Unfortunately I do need to get at the lock to pick it." And this door only had a one-way lock. No access to it from this side of the door. But maybe…

Chuck frowned as he took another good look at the doorframe Yes! The hinges were screwed in on the inside. He could work with that. He took the largest coin Vasser had had in his pockets and started working on the hinges.

Vasser watched him work for a few seconds, then put everything back in his pockets. Before he put his wallet in his pocket, he took out a credit card. "If you're going that far, let's try this, first." He held up the card. "I meant to cancel this one anyway."

He stuck the card between the door and the frame and jiggled it. He heaved at the door, still jabbing the card in. With a click, the door opened. Vasser opened it fully and then caught Chuck's confused expression. "What? It's a linen closet, not the Federal Reserve."

Chuck was still stuck between mentally kicking himself for not thinking of the credit card trick and wondering how Vasser had learned to open doors like that. "That's an interesting skill for a reporter," he managed to say quickly enough to still appear on the ball.

Vasser shrugged again, averting his eyes. "You'd be surprised what kinds of skills an investigative journalist can pick up." He took a deep breath. "Right, what's next?"

Chuck frowned. He didn't want to do anything but chase after those two Ring agents. He was even willing to let the mystery of Dan Vasser walk away for that. Taking him along now would blow what little cover Chuck had left, but at least he knew who Vasser was so it would be easy to track him down again. "Next? Nothing's next. You get out of here and I do the same."

Vasser gave him a look Chuck was more used to seeing on Casey, of all people. The look that said 'Why do I have to tell you this'. "Look, Chuck, whoever you really are and whatever you were doing, you didn't get into that linen closet by yourself. Someone put you there, and my guess is they weren't friendly about it. I'd like to know why." He moved his head in the direction of the nearest elevator. "Come on."

Vasser had handily taken the initiative from him. Chuck could do little else but follow. Although Vasser never checked whether Chuck was actually following him. He seemed more concerned with examining his surroundings very carefully, though Chuck couldn't figure out what it was he was looking for. The brand-new touch screen control panel in the elevator seemed to be especially fascinating. Chuck waited at least a minute before tapping 'ground floor' himself. Vasser had been too busy eyeing the screen suspiciously.

Once back in the lobby, Vasser stood still in front of a screen that was alternating ads and the convention schedule. Right now, it was showing an ad for the exact same smartphone Dan Vasser had brought into the Buy More for Chuck to fix. Vasser's eyes widened, then he frowned, before finally shrugging and moving on.

Whatever it had been that Vasser saw in the ad, it seemed to have alleviated his suspicions. He was a lot less skittish now, just heading straight for the security desk. He pulled out his convention badge and presented it to the security guard. "I'd like to report an assault."

He spun a story of someone attacking him from behind and waking up in a broom closet, his phone and car keys missing. He got as far as pointing out Chuck as the one who had witnessed it all and freed him from the broom closet when Sarah stepped up.

Without acknowledging Chuck in any way, she presented an ID card to the security guard. She flashed it too quickly for Chuck to see what it was exactly. It wasn't her CIA ID, though. "Thank you, sir, we'll take it from here." Now she put a hand on Chuck's arm. Casey had pulled up behind Vasser and done the same to him. Sarah put on her best fake smile "If you'd come with us please, gentlemen?"

Once they'd found a spot where they couldn't be seen or overheard, Sarah let go of Chuck's arm and turned to Vasser again. "Our apologies for the inconvenience, Mr Vasser. It seems there was some kind of miscommunication."

Vasser, who hadn't come nearly as quietly as Chuck had (who would, left to the tender mercies of an annoyed Casey?), looked angry enough to launch into an extended tirade about his civil rights. Chuck winced inwardly in expectation.

But then Vasser's eyes shot once more from Chuck to Sarah and Casey and back again, and something in his expression changed. He closed his eyes, swallowed and sighed, and then shook his head.

"You know what, I don't want to know. Just let me get out of here, and it'll be fine."

Chuck wanted to say something to that, but Casey now grabbed him and but a hand over his mouth to shut him up. Instead, Sarah spoke again. "Of course, Mr Vasser. You are free to go. Thank you for your understanding."

"We can't just let him go!" Chuck protested as soon as Vasser was out of earshot and Casey released him. "We still don't know anything about him!"

Casey shot him a death glare. "It's none of our business." He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialled a number. "General? We got him. Unharmed." Casey listened for a few more seconds, then said "Yes, General", and handed the phone to Chuck. "Beckman wants to talk to you."

Now, Casey being Casey, his tone and expression were surly as usual. But there was just a little more there. Not exactly amusement, but… satisfaction. Yes, that might be it. Whatever might have caused that satisfaction in the current situation didn't bode well for Chuck. He accepted the phone with some hesitation.

"iMister/i Bartowski," General Beckman's emphasis on that first word seemed designed to cut deeper than any amount of cuss- or even curse-words could ever have. "What do you think you are doing? Even the knowledge of the existence of Doctor Langley's projects is very nearly above imy/i pay grade. That information was deliberately withheld from the Intersect. There should not have been anything for you to flash on."

Chuck didn't really know what to say to that. "I'm sorry, General, but I did I flash on Vasser, and we didn't have a chance to contact you before weird things started happening." He found enough guts to continue, even though he could just isee/i the General directing her glare at him, even over the phone. "And there were former Ring operatives here. I'm certain they're planning something."

Beckman considered that for a few seconds. "Very well, Agent Bartowski. Capture them. However, leave Dan Vasser alone. We will discuss the rest of your actions … later."

"Yes, sir." Chuck shivered as the General broke the connection.

Casey nodded at the expression on Chuck's face when he took the phone back. "Didn't want to keep that from you."

Chuck pulled a face at Casey, then turned to Sarah while pretending to ignore Casey's reaction. "We can arrest the Ring operatives, but we need to leave Vasser alone."

Casey didn't care about being ignored. He intruded anyway. "Way ahead of you." He led the three of them outside and to the back of the hotel. There, Chuck saw the van that held all of their surveillance equipment. And hacking gear, for that matter. "You hack into the hotel security system to find them, Sarah and I get them out."

Normally, Chuck would have protested at being forced into the role of tech support once again, but this time, that actually suited him fine. Hacking into the hotel security system was easy (he'd done it before, and nobody had noticed then. The backdoors were still in place), and he'd found the two Ring operatives within minutes. That left him with enough time to scan the footage from the CCTV system for glimpses of Dan Vasser. Because something was up with him, and Chuck needed to satisfy his curiosity. He wouldn't be bothering the man if all he was doing was checking out where Vasser was going, right?

However, it proved harder to find Vasser than he'd thought. The two Ring agents had been taking care to avoid being spotted on cameras, and he still found those two much more easily than Vasser. To find Vasser, he had to rewind the tapes to the point where Vasser was at the security desk with Chuck. He could follow the whole group for a while afterward (although all of Sarah's apology to Vasser had been made somewhere off-camera), and he picked up Vasser immediately after that as well. Then there was that same graphical glitch again, the one Chuck had noticed on the Buy More footage. Just like in the Buy More footage, Vasser was simply gone after that.

-X-

Dan looked around, trying to determine where he'd ended up i this/i time. It seemed to be a back room somewhere, with boxes of junk waiting around to be thrown out. The decor said late eighties, and the stack of old newspapers confirmed it. Somewhere else in the house, a TV was playing; a cartoon by the sound of it. Apart from that, no signs of people. Yet. As Dan put the paper he'd taken back on the stack, it tipped over. It didn't make a lot of noise, but it was enough.

"Dad!" a kid's voice shouted from somewhere near the TV, and simultaneously someone else came running from much closer by. Dan had nowhere to go except out. And, as he found out when he tried to open it, the exit was locked.

Too late. The door to the rest of the house opened and revealed Steven Bartowski.

From the expression on his face, Bartowski was just as surprised to see Dan. Not that he let it slow him down. He'd barely cleared the door before his hand was going to a baseball bat leaning against a nearby box.

Dan threw up his hands to avoid being bludgeoned. "I'm unarmed."

It worked well enough for Bartowski to halt his swing and take a good look at Dan. Then his eyes widened. "You again!" He lowered the bat. "How… What…" He stopped himself, shaking his head. He took a deep breath, closed the door and leaned against it to stare at Dan without saying anything else.

"Thank you for not knocking me out on sight," Dan said, mostly to say isomething/i. "I'm sorry to drop in like this…"

He couldn't finish. "Why me?" Bartowski asked.

Dan frowned. He hadn't expected that question. "I'm sorry?"

Bartowski pushed himself away from the door. "You're a time traveller." When Dan tried to protest, he held up a hand. "Don't bother denying it. Even if nothing else, that thing you left behind would have been a major indication."

His phone. So he ihad/i left it behind in the past. All the more important that he get it back now. "Yeah, about that," Dan started, but again Bartowski didn't let him finish.

"That thing was decades ahead of everything. I'm in a position to know. Nobody else had, or even has, anything near that powerful.

"You also don't seem to have aged a second in nearly a decade. Or changed your clothes."

Dan looked away. He didn't have an answer to this.

Bartowski continued, gesturing to emphasise his point. "Finally, the person walking around San Francisco with your name looks scarily like you. But he iis/i twenty years younger." He spread his arms wide. So, time travel. But why here, and why me?"

Bartowski fell silent. Dan let the silence stretch, unsure of what to say. He rubbed his hand through his hair just to have something to do while he figured out a way out of this.

"I don't really know," he finally managed. "I have no control over this. Nor do I have any idea of what I'm doing here."

"Put right what once went wrong?" Bartowski suggested.

Dan shrugged. "Maybe. I usually track a person for a while, bring them into contact with someone or prevent them doing something, but usually the effects are pretty small overall." He took a deep breath. "It's usually only when I make a mistake that something major changes that I have to fix. Like when I leave a phone behind…" He intentionally trailed off, hoping that Bartowski would get the message.

He did. Bartowski nodded. "I guess you'd better have this back," he said, and walked over to a cabinet. He pulled out a toolbox, unlocked it, and after some rummaging produced a small anti-static bag. "Here you go."

Dan took the bag, confused. He opened the bag, and two little cards fell out. His phone's SIM, none the worse for wear, and the memory card, which did seem to have suffered a little at the edges.

"I had to take it – a phone, you said it was? – apart when the battery gave out." Bartowski had the grace to sound apologetic. "And the tech for the screen was too good to resist, so I had a Korean friend of mine take a look at it." He must have caught Dan's look of panic, because he rushed to assure him. "All kept top-secret, not to be shared, because it's also far too good to share." He almost smiled at that. "But anyway, those two cards seemed to contain most of the actual data, and some of it was pretty personal, so I tried not to touch them too much."

Dan studied the card again. "It doesn't look like it hasn't been touched."

A shrug. "Well. I had to see what was on there at least, and those image compression algorithms, oh…" Bartowski really smiled now, more to himself than at Dan. "They were… inspiring." He frowned, contemplating something. Then he nodded to himself and put his hand on the door latch. "I don't think I should be showing you this, but Elliot Langley seems to trust you, so…"

"Langley!?" Dan nearly shouted out, so surprised was he. He had never in a million years suspected a connection.

He never got an answer, however, because at that moment, the lights dimmed momentarily, and Bartowski's expression changed. With his ear to the door, he must have heard something. He shouted out "Chuck? Chuck!" and was gone.

And so was Dan before he could follow Bartowski. Back to his own time.

-X-

"And that was it, really," Chuck said. He was telling the whole story to Morgan. "Casey and Sarah brought in the Ring operatives, and hopefully that'll appease General Beckman enough that she won't bite my head off."

"So no more mystery light flashes?" Morgan asked, still leaning on the Buy More Nerd Herd counter. It was a typically slow day, again. Apart from Dan Vasser this morning, nothing interesting had happened, so Morgan had naturally been a) angry at Chuck for not involving him and b) extremely curious to hear the whole story.

"Nope," Chuck shook his head. He was a little disappointed himself. It didn't seem like he'd found out enough about this tantalising little mystery. That just went against every instinct he had, nerd and spy both. "I tried digging more into Elliott Langley, but according to anything I can get at, he's just a theoretical physicist at Lawrence Livermore. Some really cool stuff, but nothing related to the spy world."

Morgan perked up. "What kind of cool stuff?"

Chuck couldn't help grinning. "Time travel, would you believe it? Wormholes, faster than light particles and he even consulted for NASA – his whole resume reads like something out of Star Trek." Then he let his grin fade. "But all theoretical. The only experiments to his name are thought experiments."

"Bummer," Morgan commiserated. "With him aware you're looking for him and Beckman ordering you off, there's not a chance in hell that…"

While Morgan was speaking, Chuck's gaze drifted around the store. And then he saw something that made him smile. "Maybe not, Morgan. He's here."

Vasser had stepped out from behind a video game display near the registers, almost knocking over another customer in a plaid shirt and a baseball cap. That was an odd place to show up at, because he couldn't have gotten there without passing the doors, and then either Chuck or Morgan should have spotted him sooner. Vasser looked around for a few seconds, confusion clear on his face, before spotting the Nerd Herd sign and coming over.

All of which gave Morgan plenty of time to get a good look at him. "That's the guy?" He frowned. "I think I know him from somewhere." He snapped his fingers. "PDA guy!"

Morgan started to say something else, but now Vasser was at the Nerd Herd desk and so he stopped. Debating how to proceed, Chuck settled for 'pretend nothing's wrong'.

"Hi there! Welcome back to the Buy More. How can I help you this time?"

Vasser shot him a long, studying look before deciding to play along. He put something down on the counter. "I need a new phone. Something that can take those cards, if possible."

Chuck picked up the SIM and memory card. Both of them looked like they'd been through quite a lot. If he hadn't been absolutely sure that memory cards of this capacity were only two years old, he'd have guessed they'd both seen their first decade, and possibly their second. "What did you do to these cards? It might be a better idea to replace them. Of course, we can copy over the data."

Vasser snorted and shook his head. "I can copy it myself, thanks."

"As you wish, sir." Chuck could see Morgan was about to start asking questions and tried to head them off. "Morgan, could you please see if you can find some phones for him to choose from?"

Morgan made half a move to go get the phones, but then seemed to reconsider. He turned back to Chuck and with a glance at Vasser said, "Are you telling your manager what to do, Mr Bartowski?"

Chuck turned his salesman's grin back at Vasser. "Just a moment, sir." Then he put a friendly arm around Morgan's shoulder to pull him aside. "Yes I am, Morgan, and I suggest you do it or I'll tell Casey about the time you pissed on Reagan's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame." That was possibly going a bit far, but Morgan needed to get out of here _now_, so time to bring out the big guns.

Morgan's eyes widened. "You wouldn't!"

"Try me, buddy." To soften the blow, Chuck started to explain. "I want to talk to Vasser, but he's not going to say anything with you standing there."

Morgan shook his head. "All right, Charles, but that's a threat that is not so easily forgiven. There had better be a long and complete explanation soon. Including the nasty details."

"You'll get it."

Morgan went off, still reluctantly. Chuck turned back to Vasser, ready to start an indepth conversation, and…

… dried up. How much had he really told Vasser, and how much had Vasser figured out himself? Neither could be much, and Chuck could admit to even less, here in public.

With his hesitation, he lost the initiative to Vasser. The man looked at him searchingly. "Bartowski?" You're not related to Stephen Bartowski, are you?"

Well, that question sure took Chuck by surprise. Vasser should have known this all along, and so have no need to ask. If he didn't know, then why had he been sniffing around Chuck this long? Chuck shook his head to deny it, just to stall. "No, I don't know that name."

Vasser smiled at him. "You play a lot of poker, Chuck?"

Chuck shrugged. "I'm more of a Call of Duty kind of guy, really."

A nod. "I wouldn't start anytime soon, either." Vasser's smile disappeared. "I'm still not entirely sure exactly what's going on here." He pointed down at the counter just for emphasis, right before shaking his head. "Doing what I do… I don't always get to find out who or what I influenced."

"So what do you do?" That was just too straight a line. "You're not just a reporter."

Vasser shot him a look that basically said 'nice try'. "And you didn't just make a career of the Buy More Nerd Herd. Does it really matter?" His eyes dropped to the counter again. After a brief pause, he continued. "I've had a lot of opportunities to be in the right place at the right time. I'm glad I got to see what I was in the right place for, this time."

Morgan picked that time to come back with phones. Eventually, Vasser settled on a slightly older model, with no GPS but excellent call quality. It even supported several legacy spectrum bands that hadn't been in regular use since the early nineties. He left with a nod to Chuck and the words "give my regards to your father."

That left Chuck without a reply. He could hardly go shouting through the store that his father was dead. He settled for watching Vasser leave.

He never saw him reach the door, however. He passed the customer in the plaid shirt again, nodding at him this time, passed behind a shelving unit and… never came out the other side.

When Chuck finally gave up waiting for Vasser to appear, he found Morgan contemplating one of the phones he'd brought out for Vasser. It was the model Vasser had brought in the first time. "That's weird," Morgan said.

"Weird doesn't even begin to cover it, Morgan," Chuck answered, his mind still on Vasser's disappearance.

"What?" Morgan sounded just as confused, but caught up uncharacteristically quickly. "Oh, no, not that. Look. I thought this phone looked familiar ever since we got it in." He held the phone under Chuck's nose.

"That's because everyone is copying each other's designs these days, Morgan. And yeah, it's a good phone, but I still have a better one. What do you mean?"

"You said this was the kind of phone this Vasser had when he came in last time, right?" Chuck nodded and Morgan continued. "I remembered where I thought I'd seen it before when I saw Vasser holding it.

"It was a couple of years ago, here in the store. There was a customer that had a new model PDA, and Jeff, Lester and I were playing with it until you called us off." Morgan frowned. "I'm pretty sure that customer was Vasser, and…" he help up the phone. "I'm absolutely sure this was the 'PDA' he had. I remember the camera program. And it was pretty spectacular back then, a digital organiser with a camera." He got a wide-eyed look. "Hey, you don't think we're dealing with time travel here, do you?"

Chuck repressed the urge to laugh at Morgan to his face. He'd seem some pretty awesome and nearly impossible things since acquiring the Intersect, but time travel was one step too far. "Oh, come on, Morgan. That's ridiculous. That PDA must just have been something that looked like it. And that was years ago. How well would you remember that anyway?"

Morgan held up his hand, as if to shush Chuck. "Hear me out, buddy. I've got another reason to remember him. He paid with a fake twenty. A really i_good/i _fake twenty. I didn't even see it until later. The bill was worn enough we couldn't give it in change anymore, so I took it in to Big Mike. He spotted it."

Morgan paused for effect, taking a deep breath to make his big announcement. "The bill was dated as being printed in July, and it was June!"

He stopped, waiting for Chuck to respond. He'd be disappointed. Chuck shook his head. "Still not believing it, Morgan. Sorry." He shrugged. " I guess we'll have to keep on looking."

Because Vasser was gone, and the mystery still unsolved.

-X-

Vasser blinked. Damn. He'd hoped the trips were over again. It looked like he wasn't quite done yet, though. One second be was exiting the Buy More, the next he was in … a sewer? Somewhere concrete, enclosed and utilitarian, at least.

A group of people was leaving, their backs to where Dan had appeared. They'd left someone behind.

There was a man on the floor, not moving, nor making any sounds Dan could hear as he approached. There were smells aplenty, however. Especially blood. Dan hurried his steps.

The man was Stephen Bartowski. He had a bullet wound high on his chest, and there was still blood coming out of it. Dan felt for a pulse, but couldn't find one. Since the blood was still flowing, however, there must be one somewhere. Right. Pressure was the name of the game, if he remembered correctly. Keep the wound closed, stop any more blood escaping. And call for help.

"What the hell!?"

Ah. Help had already arrived.

A man in surgeon's greens stepped from behind a pipe. He had his hands held up, palms inward. The typical pose of a doctor who had just scrubbed for surgery. By the look on his face, the man hadn't been expecting to take a step and end up ihere/i.

He didn't let it stop him for long, though. He took note of the blood, the body on the floor and Dan in a single glance and came over. "Okay, what do we have here?"

Dan opened his mouth, but that was the moment that the doctor caught sight of who he was treating. He jumped back two paces, suddenly white as a sheet. "That's Ellie's dad! What the hell is going on here?!"

Dan looked up, trying to catch's the doctor's eyes. "I understand this must be confusing - What's your name?"

"Devon," the doctor answered, breathlessly. "Seriously, if this is a joke, it's iso/i not awesome."

"Devon, this is not a joke." He'd finally succeeded in getting 'Devon' to look at his face. "Forget who he is for a second. This man is dying. You're a doctor. Can you help him?"

Devon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he'd collected himself. He quickly investigated Bartowski's wounds. "You're already doing everything we can do at the moment. Except call an ambulance." He patted his legs, where his pockets would have been if he hadn't been wearing scrubs. "But I don't have a phone."

"Use mine. Lop left jacket pocket."

Devon fished out Dan's phone from his pockets, and called in the 911. Without even being prompted, he gave the exact location of where the man could be found, and the exact details of what was wrong with him. Dan hadn't even known exactly where he was. When he was finished, he kneeled alongside Dan. "I'll take over now. On three."

When he'd taken over and made sure Bartowski's bleeding was being stopped as much as possible, Devon seemed to relax a little bit. Enough to regain his curiosity, at least.

"What the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?"

Dan tried to fish out his handkerchief without bloodying his jacket, failed, and then wiped his hands on his handkerchief anyway. "I'm Dan Vasser. As for what's going on, well…

"I don't know how and I don't really know why, but this isn't the first time this has happened to me. If you help the people you encounter you'll find yourself back at home soon enough." Dan shook his head. Damn, he was bad at explaining this.

Devon seemed to agree. "Encounter where? What?" The questions were plain on his face as well as spoken out loud, but the sound of the ambulance arriving cut off the opportunity for answering them. And the headache that presaged another journey, as well.

"You said you knew this man," Dan managed to ask Devon, and got a nod in response. "Then find Chuck. He'll know how to find me.

"Chuck?" Devon said. "But Chuck is…"

Unfortunately, Dan was gone before he could hear the end of that sentence.


End file.
